2 Chronicles 17:5–8

¹NOW Jehoshaphat had riches and honour in abundance, and joined affinity with Ahab.

³³But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

¹¹¶ And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

¹EXCEPT the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

¹²So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.

¹⁰But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

²⁷But the children of Belial said, How shall this man save us? And they despised him, and brought him no presents. But he held his peace.

²³And many brought gifts unto the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah: so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth.

²⁹Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto thee.

²⁵And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and garments, and armour, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year.

²⁷And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycomore trees that are in the vale, for abundance.

²¹And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life.

⁴And if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments:

⁵Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.

¹⁵And the king made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plenteous as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycomore trees that are in the vale for abundance.

²⁷¶ And Hezekiah had exceeding much riches and honour: and he made himself treasuries for silver, and for gold, and for precious stones, and for spices, and for shields, and for all manner of pleasant jewels;

²⁸Storehouses also for the increase of corn, and wine, and oil; and stalls for all manner of beasts, and cotes for flocks.

²⁹Moreover he provided him cities, and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance: for God had given him substance very much.

²⁷And the king made silver in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycomore trees that are in the low plains in abundance.

²⁵And now, O Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it for ever, and do as thou hast said.

²⁶And let thy name be magnified for ever, saying, The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel: and let the house of thy servant David be established before thee.

¹³And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;

¹⁴Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

²And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

¹³And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great:

¹⁴For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him.

¹²If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore.

¹⁰The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.

¹¹Vow, and pay unto the Lord your God: let all that be round about him bring presents unto him that ought to be feared.

⁹Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.

¹⁷But the high places were not taken away out of Israel: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days.

³³Howbeit the high places were not taken away: for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers.

¹BLESSED are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.

⁴³And he walked in all the ways of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing that which was right in the eyes of the Lord: nevertheless the high places were not taken away; for the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places.

³Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek God.

³¶ For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.

⁴And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.

⁵And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

⁶And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about.

⁷And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.

⁵Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the glory of the Lord.

²¹For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

²²For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me.

³For he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and brake down the images, and cut down the groves:

¹NOW when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned, every man to his possession, into their own cities.

¹⁰And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

⁴⁷Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;

²⁶For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God.

³And said unto the Levites that taught all Israel, which were holy unto the Lord, Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David king of Israel did build; it shall not be a burden upon your shoulders: serve now the Lord your God, and his people Israel,

⁹And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.

¹⁰The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.

³Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.

⁷Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place.

⁸So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.

²²And Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the Levites that taught the good knowledge of the Lord: and they did eat throughout the feast seven days, offering peace offerings, and making confession to the Lord God of their fathers.

¹THE former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,

¹²¶ I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

⁴³And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent.

⁴⁴And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee.

¹³¶ And on the second day were gathered together the chief of the fathers of all the people, the priests, and the Levites, unto Ezra the scribe, even to understand the words of the law.

¹⁴And they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month:

³And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the Lord their God one fourth part of the day; and another fourth part they confessed, and worshipped the Lord their God.

¹³Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

¹⁰They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar.

⁵Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.

²³And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.

²And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,

²³¶ And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

¹¹Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

⁸¶ Moreover in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites, and of the priests, and of the chief of the fathers of Israel, for the judgment of the Lord, and for controversies, when they returned to Jerusalem.

¹NOW after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah,

²The son of Shallum, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub,

³The son of Amariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Meraioth,

⁴The son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Bukki,

⁵The son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest:

⁶This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given: and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him.

⁷For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.